Fly in the SACD Ointment?

I agree with Onhwy61 about being encouraged by the appearance of SACD in a more prominent place at Tower. A few months ago, it was with the minidiscs in the pop section at Tower here in NY, virtually out of sight. As far as Cwlondon's point, I've said it before, SACD (and 24/96, for that matter) gets you closer to the master tape, but be careful what you wish for, because some of those master tapes don't sound so great. As new recordings get made in these formats, this will be less of a concern, but you should be cautious about some of the re-releases. For example, I didn't realize that Billy Joel's "The Stranger", an album I've always liked, was cut at as hot a level as the SACD revealed. Now part of the difference is in the resolving power of my system now vs. then, but it's still clear that SACD has revealed more than I want to hear. But it has also revealed to me just how good the Bruno Walter series of recordings for Columbia are. So for now, a mixed blessing, but I prefer to look at it as the start of something which will be significantly better in the future.

CW, you are on to something here. Take Carole King's Tapestry as an example. Her voice was not recorded too well to begin with. On the album and CD that was audible. On the SACD, well, it becomes sort of the new characteristic of the record I wish I'd never heard. Take New World Symphony (Dvorzak) by New York Philharmonic, conducted by Bernstein... There IS more detail I can hear in the SACD version, but the tape hissssssssssssssss never seems to end througout the disc. Somehow, it is more engaging musically but the hisssssssssssss puts a damper on it. This seems to be the case with many of the re-releases Sony has done. I bought Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell... I never liked it sonically on vinyl or CD, cause I always felt it was missing something. Well let me tell you, it misses something on SACD too. Still a cool album, but still misses something sonically.

On a brighter note, Mozart's Piano Concierto No. 20, also on Sony, in my opinion just is plain great. It has also got it's issues, but the performance on SACD is just so much more engaging! De piano IS THERE!! My favorite disc right this minute is Dave Bruebeck's 40th Anniversary Tour of the UK, a Telarc live recording in DSD. It is open, dynamic, full and has one of the lowest noise floors I have heard yet on SACD. The dynamics, IMO a trademark of Telarc discs, the nice balanced soundstage and the musicality are amazing. As this is a disc that will play in normal and SACD machines, it makes for a good test and comparison disc when checking out new stuff.

Look, stuff that was poorly recorded will always sound bad. I am just hoping that telarc and co will push SACD to the limit and make the best of it. It has potential.

Niels.

I remember searching for good vinyl and CD recordings, and today I search for good SACD recordings.

In almost every case the Sony SACDs sound better than their CD counterparts.

However, to truly experience the benefit of SACD, the master should be in DSD. Telarc, FIM, GrooveNote, Red Rose, and a handful of record labels are selling DSD/SACD recordings and sonically are superior to the Sony releases. However, some of the performances fall short. For example, Jacintha's Autumn Leaves is great sonically, but I listen to Carole King or the Bangles Greatest Hits more.

Sony is beginning to release new DSD/SACD material. I'm not sure if the master is DSD, but this week I understand that Sony is released CD and SACD versions of Train's Drops of Jupiter. Soon to follow is something new from Offspring and Aerosmith's most recent recording.

Like the move from 78 to 33, 33 to CD, VHS to DVD, etc. it takes time to build a library.

I've had my SACD player for 3 months. Today, I listened one of my favorate DVD-videos, Fleetwood Mac's The Dance. It was the first time I listened to it since I bought my SACD player. It sounded flat, fuzzy and grainy. SACD has spoiled me.

Perhaps we need to rethink where a new technology might go and (maybe opening a can of worms) how to measure it..(from a music lover point of view)..
If we expect to have current music we love that was recorded quite a while ago to sound way better just to a new technology that was not available when the music was recorded, it might be our wish but the source material puts a cap on what could be achieved....
On the other hand if the material is taken with new technology all the way, there´s the chance that we might get the best performance achievable by present day technologies.....
the issue might be that we might be looking for something that is not already there and we do praise and like better reproduction of our favorite music time and consumers judgment will eventually define the long term fate..
So it's a tricky situation how to make a new thing being favoured by us the customers based on old source material?
This is not a statement but an opening of thought that has wandered in my mind for quite a time...
What do you think?

Makes sense to me Sol: I have been listening to some recordings tonight on CD "The Tiny Powell Gospel Collection" that were originaly recorded in 1949 and 1950 and had to take it to the mini system to make it listenable.